


Guy's Guide to Awkwardness: A Cautionary Tale by Sam Evans

by gingerfic



Series: An Alphabet of Samcedes Stories [7]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, F/M, Fluffy, Humor, diva!Mercedes, dork!Sam, puckerbros, samcedes - Freeform, serious allergic reaction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5036653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerfic/pseuds/gingerfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has a crush, but frat boys are cool about this kind of thing. At least, they’re supposed to be. But Sam has a secret: he’s not nearly as cool as he pretends to be, and unfortunately, that may cost him the girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guy's Guide to Awkwardness: A Cautionary Tale by Sam Evans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voyagehk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voyagehk/gifts).



> Gifted to my beta, for helping me take this vague idea and turn it into an actual story. (And for beta reading at superhuman speeds.)

** Phase One: Getting Caught Staring **

It all started innocently enough. Sam was supposed to be looking at her, since she was singing on stage and he was sitting in the audience with several of his frat brothers. The college halloween concert always drew in a standing-room-only crowd, because the orchestra would perform in costume, and they would play crowd-pleasing songs. This year’s list included “A Little Night Music on Elm Street” (which started with Mozart and then got weird), a “Phantom of the Opera” medley, some intense organ piece, a selection of popular movie soundtrack themes, and “ [ O Fortuna ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QPU1VpPn2s) .”

Sam had seen all this before--more or less--at last year’s halloween concert. Most of the frat guys wouldn’t be caught dead at a classical music concert, but they always all came to the halloween one (before they went back to the frat house for an afterparty). The afterparty had always been a bit of a joke, since no one in the frat was actually involved with the production. But this year one of the new brothers--Blaine--was actually a music major. So that seemed to legitimize things a bit and this year’s bash promised to be bigger than ever before. 

Sam was excited for the afterparty, but right now, in this moment, he couldn’t stop staring at one of the women singing the lead vocal part on “O Fortuna.” (According to the program, she was either Rachel Berry, Mercedes Jones, or Tina Cohen-Chang, but he didn’t know which one.) Sam was grateful for the cover of darkness, until he realized that it wasn’t actually dark enough to hide him.

“Dude, your mouth is hanging open,” Finn whispered with an elbow to his ribs. On Finn’s other side the Puckerbros snickered. (They were actually cousins, but between growing up together and then pledging the same frat, everyone assumed they were brothers and they just went with it.) Blaine turned around from the row in front of them and made an exaggerated (but silent) shushing gesture.

“She’s hot, isn’t she?” Finn whispered, most softly this time. “The short one in the middle? Wow.”

Sam nodded dumbly. That was not the girl he had been looking at, but if it could spare him some embarrassment in front of the bros, he was going for it.

 

* * *

** Phase Two: Getting Caught Staring By the One You’re Staring At **

The afterparty was, well, basically just like any other party they had at the frat house: lots of people (most of whom Sam didn’t know), lots of food, and lots and lots of booze. Sam had always been a moderate drinker anyway, and he had never been more glad for that than when he saw Blaine come through the door with a group of people that included the amazing singer from the concert. 

“Hey guys, I brought a few folks from the music department!” Blaine proclaimed loudly to the room at large. His announcement was greeted with cheering and a couple of catcalls, and the little group slowly dispersed into the room.

“Hey, how are things shaping up here?” Blaine asked Sam, sliding up next to him with a beer in hand. “I promised them that the frat had good parties, but music people can be a bit elitist, so now we kind of need to impress them.”

Sam laughed. “Um, it’s pretty much the same as usual… Finn got his brother to make those cool tiny pies again.”

“Nice!” Blaine nodded enthusiastically and took another swig, then flashed Sam a grin as he wandered off to mingle.

Sam didn’t really notice him leave because he was watching the lovely singer as she made her way through the crowd, arm linked with another of the music girls. 

 

* * *

It was more than an hour later--and Sam was still watching the girl more than doing anything else--when suddenly she looked straight at him, and raised an eyebrow.

He hurriedly grabbed the nearest food and shoved some in his mouth, trying to act casual about it. Unfortunately it was a very hot cheese popper, and he burned his tongue and then had to open his mouth and pant a bit to avoid burning it further before grabbing the nearest drink and gulping at it greedily. By the time he’d recovered, and dared to look her way again, she was deep in conversation with the other music girl. But he knew she had seen him. She had definitely seen him. That little smile on her face hadn’t been there before.

 

* * *

** Phase Three: Accepting Irrational Dares **

“Her name is Mercedes,” Noah said softly into Sam’s ear.

Sam was startled and shook his head before looking at his friend. He hadn’t even heard him approach. “What?” 

“There, the one you’ve been staring at all night. Her name is Mercedes.”

“I haven’t been--”

“Sam,” Noah clapped him on the back with a knowing smile. “You couldn’t take your eyes off her at the concert hall, and since the moment she came through the door here you’ve been watching her again. And I’m just telling you, her name is Mercedes. 

“I--” Sam swallowed. There wasn’t much point in trying to hide this kind of thing from Noah. He noticed everything.

“If you’re interested, why don’t you just go talk to her?”

“I can’t do that,” Sam said hurriedly.

“Why not? How else are you going to find out if she’s interested?” Trust a Puckerman to think that going up to talk to a girl was no big deal!

“Well, uh--”

“Just go over there!” Noah encouraged. “I’ll be your wingman!”

“You’ll be whose wingman?” Finn asked from behind them.

“Sam here has been eying that girl, but he’s too chicken to go talk to her,” Noah explained. “I’m helping him.”

“Dude, you’re terrifying. Let me help,” Finn said. “Because I actually  can help, because I already talked to her friend, so I can make an introduction.”

“Um, guys--” Sam tried, but they talked over him.

“We can both go,” Noah suggested. “Two wings, two wingman. Yeah, that’s good.”

“No!” Even Sam was surprised at the intensity of his voice.

“Whoa, man, chill!” Finn said, holding his hands out defensively. “Ok, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. We’re just trying to help.”

“I don’t need help,” Sam insisted.

“Uh, yeah you do,” Noah smirked. “If we don’t make you do this, you’re going to just go on staring, and that doesn’t get anybody any action.”

“Ok, fine, but I can do this alone. I don’t need a wingman.”

Noah shrugged. “Ok, let’s make it a dare then. I dare you to go talk to her.”

“You have to actually talk to her, not just say hi and run away,” Finn added.

“You have to ask her out,” Noah decided. “You ask her out, or you have to clean up this whole party by yourself.”

“And if I do ask her out, then you clean it up,” Sam retorted.

“Sure.” Noah shrugged again.

Sam looked around the rooms full of people, rolled his shoulders a couple of times, cracked his neck, and then nodded. “Done.”

 

* * *

** Phase Four: Embarrassing Everybody **

As he crossed the room, Sam asked himself a dozen times why he had taken the dare. Now there was pressure, and pressure always made him nervous. And sweaty.

Some people knew--or guessed--how not cool he really was. After all, being a computer programming major already gave him some pretty hefty geek cred. That was one of the main reasons Sam had joined the fraternity actually: to help hide just how much of a nerd he really was. He figured that if he always surrounded himself with other cool and confident guys then maybe some of it would rub off. Or at least he could be considered cool and confident by association.

But now there was a dare resting on his ability to talk to a girl (something he had never been good at in the past). Sam knew he shouldn’t have taken the dare, except that this was a pretty big party and cleanup was going to be awful. Not to mention that Noah would also tease him about it for weeks or months.

Nope, he had to do it.

He stepped up to where Mercedes and her friends were talking, took a deep breath, and blurted, “weeyoo gowana day twith me?”

The (gorgeous) girl turned to look at him and her (long, beautiful) eyelashes fluttered as she looked him up and down. “Excuse me?” she asked.

Sam gulped. “Will you go onadatewithme,” he tried again, mumbling almost as badly as the first time. He could feel his ears getting hot and knew his face was probably getting red. He stared at his toes and wished he could sink into the floor. Any second now she was going to laugh in his face, and then all her friends would join in. He should have just accepted cleaning up and never tried to--

His train of thought was cut short when felt a gentle touch on his arm. His head snapped up and he saw her fingertips resting lightly near his elbow. 

“Sure. That would be nice. Now that the concert is done my schedule has opened up a little. How about Tuesday?”

Sam felt the grin spread across his face. “Really?”

Ugh, that was dumb. 

She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand, but she wasn’t making fun of him. “I’ve seen you staring all night,” she whispered, leaning close to his ear. “It’s pretty flattering.”

“Oh.”

“So is Tuesday ok?”

“Yeah,” he nodded vigorously. “Yeah, Tuesday would be great.”

 

* * *

** Phase Five: Actually Causing Bodily Harm **

On Tuesday evening when Mercedes opened the door for Sam, he thrust a bouquet of flowers at her. 

“I got you flowers,” he said awkwardly, mentally facepalming and hoping that he didn’t sound as lame as he felt. 

“Oh, thank you, they’re beautiful,” she said with a broad smile as she accepted them. She had just buried her face into the blossoms to smell them when suddenly she shrieked and threw the flowers back at him, clutching her hands to her face.

“Mercedes?” Sam asked, confused and worried and embarrassed all at once. Then he saw the bee fall out of the flowers and realized she must have been stung.

“Oh, Mercedes, I am so sorry. Oh my god, I swear I didn’t know there was a bee in there--”

“A bee?” A light-haired girl had come from somewhere inside the apartment to stand behind Mercedes, who had now sunk to the floor and was moaning. “Mercedes is really allergic to bees, did she get stung?”

Sam nodded dumbly.

“Well then we’ve got to get her to the emergency room right away, do you have a car?”

Sam nodded again, too much in shock to do anything else. This was not at all the way this date was supposed to go.

“Good, because I don’t. C’mon, get her to the car while I get an ice pack for her.”

Sam reached down and scooped up Mercedes in his arms (an action a little more intimate than he’d anticipated getting on the first date, and definitely not the context he would have hoped for). He carried her out and carefully deposited her in the back seat of his car.

That is, he tried to carefully deposit her in the back seat of his car. What actually happened was that he nearly dropped her (twice) between the apartment and the vehicle, and then banged her foot on the side of the car as he set her inside. Her hand was still over her face and she was shaking pretty hard so he couldn’t see whether she looked mad or scared or unaffected by his mumbled “sorry.”

By the time she was settled (and had pushed his hand away from trying to help her with the seatbelt), the roommate had rejoined them. She hurriedly shoved a bag of frozen vegetables into Mercedes’ face and then climbed into the front seat without even introducing herself. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

** Phase Six: Overstaying Your Welcome **

Mercedes had been whisked into an exam room as soon as they arrived, and her roommate was intently filling out paperwork in the hospital waiting room. Sam was sitting there with a squishy, drippy bag of (no longer frozen) vegetables, wondering how things had gotten to this point.

The roommate clicked the pen shut and slid it onto the edge of the clipboard, then went up to the front counter to turn it in. A few moments later she returned, plopping into the chair next to Sam and looking him up and down.

“Have you two been dating for long?”

“Uh, no, this was the first date,” Sam said wretchedly.

“That explains why I haven’t met you before,” the girl said. She stuck out her hand in greeting. “I’m Quinn, sorry we never got to be properly introduced. I sort of go into control-freak mode when there’s an emergency.”

“No, no, it’s ok,” Sam assured her, shaking her hand. “I’m glad, because I would have had no idea what was going on.”

Quinn stared at him expectantly for a few moments before he realized why. “Oh, I’m Sam.”

“Nice to meet you, Sam,” Quinn smiled. “Look, they will have given her the epinephrine by now, so I’m sure she’s going to be fine. But they will probably want to keep her for a few hours for observation. That’s what they did last time.”

“Last time?” Sam echoed.

“So I’m sorry your date night is ruined, but you can at least go home and play video games with the guys or something. I don’t mind waiting here.”

“But I drove you,” Sam remembered.

“It’s ok, I can call our other roommate to come get us when they release her. There’s no sense in your waiting around.” She was still smiling. “It’s not like you’re her boyfriend. You’re not obligated to stay.”

“I want to,” Sam said stubbornly. “It’s my fault Mercedes is here, I want to stay and make sure she’s ok.”

Quinn shrugged and picked up a magazine from the end table nearby. “Whatever.”

 

* * *

** Phase Seven: Saying Something Stupid **

More than two hours had passed and Sam had been fidgeting and pacing the whole time, but Quinn seemed serene as could be.

“They aren’t going to let you go back to see her you know,” Quinn said without even looking up from her magazine (the third she’d read since they’d been there). “It’s family only. They won’t even let me back there and she and I have been best friends since we were seven.”

“Can’t I just tell them I’m her brother or something?” Sam wondered out loud.

Quinn snorted. “Somehow I doubt they’d go for that.”

“Why?...oh…” Sam looked down at himself and chuckled. “Right. Well, maybe I can tell them I’m her lawyer or…”

“Are you a lawyer?” an amused voice behind him asked, and Sam turned around to see Mercedes standing there. Her hair was a bit disheveled, but otherwise she didn’t really look any worse for the wear.

“No, I’m a computer programmer,” Sam answered automatically. “I mean, I will be, once I finish my… Ohmygod Mercedes I am so, so sorry about everything.”

She smiled slightly. “It happens.”

“I shouldn’t have brought flowers. It was too much for a first date anyway, but I was nervous because you’re so pretty and I couldn’t believe you’d agreed to go out with me. So I was trying too hard, but I shouldn’t have because--”

He was silenced by the press of her finger against his lips.

“Hush, Sam. I told you, it’s ok.”

Quinn sat silently behind them with an amused smirk on her face.

“Anyway, I’m not sure what you had planned for tonight, but I’m afraid it’s getting a little late now to do very much.”

Sam nodded. “I’m really sorry.”

“So how about we just get some ice cream. My lip still feels puffy and something cold sounds good.”

 

* * *

** Phase Eight: Giving Up **

“I feel sort of stupid,” Sam admitted after they had dropped Quinn off back at the apartment and were seated across from each other with their ice cream.

“Why?” Mercedes licked the top off of her ice cream swirl and looked at him curiously.

“Because I’ve been trying really hard to be cool, but I’m just not.”

“You’re in a fraternity,” Mercedes pointed out. “Doesn’t that give you some coolness points?”

“Not enough to offset my super dorky real self.”

She raised a questioning eyebrow and licked at her ice cream again, waiting for him to continue.

“Like, I’m not the kind of guy who goes out with pretty girls. I’m just the kind of guy who sits on the sidelines and watches them and wishes he could go out with them. And then some of my friends caught me watching you at the party the other night, and they dared me to ask you out.”

“Didn’t you want to?”

“No, I did! I just, normally I would be too nervous to do it.”

“Ah,” she said thoughtfully, swirling her tongue around the ice cream. “Your cone is melting there honey.”

“Oh, right.” Sam took a large slurp off the top of his ice cream and immediately scrunched his eyes shut and pressed his hands to his head in pain.

Mercedes chuckled. “Well, I got a bee sting and you got a brainfreeze. I guess this will be a memorable first date to tell our friends about.”

“To tell our...what?” Sam’s eyes snapped open.

“But next time let’s try for something a little less...eventful. What do you say?”

“Next time?”

She smiled flirtatiously. “Unless you don’t want a next time?”

“Oh, I do, but I thought that after everything--”

“Next time, then,” she repeated with a wink. “I’m looking forward to it.”


End file.
